They Say Music is a Universal Language

In efforts to continue my flute playing, which I’ve done for the last 15 or so years, one of the first things I set out to do when we moved was find a local concert band to play with. I first found the nice folks at Southwark Concert Band who came equipped with their very own conductor from San Francisco. During the first rehearsal I attended, I was listening to the conductor talk about needing to play the crochets shorter. I had no idea what a crochet was. During the nightly tea break, I asked one of the other flute players what a crochet was. He pointed at a quarter note. I then pointed at an eighth note and asked what it was called. He replied it was a quaver. I was faced with having to learn a whole new vocabulary to describe note names. I came up with this cheat sheet I found on the web.:

• Semi-breve
• Whole note
• Minim
• Half note
• Crotchet
• Quarter note
• Quaver
• Eighth note
• Semiquaver
• Sixteenth note
• Demisemiquaver
• Thirty-second note
• Hemidemisemiquaver
• Sixty-fourth note
• Quasihemidemisemiquaver
• Hundred twenty-eighth note
• Semihemidemisemiquaver
• Hundred twenty-eighth note
• Rests - Where, for example, British say crotchet rest, Americans say quarter rest (not quarter-note rest)
• Dots - Dots are dots: a dotted minim, for example, is a dotted half note

I found myself having to say goodbye to these nice people, because, when rehearsals take at least 55 minutes each way to get to (and that’s only if the planets governing public transport are perfectly aligned, otherwise its more like 90 minutes each way), it is hard to stay motivated to go to rehearsals every week. Allen found a band that plays out of Paddington Station every Friday, which I now play in. It’s quite different. There are no rehearsals. Whoever that can, sightreads through new music every Friday. My sightreading is improving, and I’m now having to learn how to transpose (here you don’t raise things up a half-step, but rather a semi-tone). Transposing makes my head hurt. It is giving me the opportunity to continue playing when I can, and I enjoy that very much. The audience (transient though it is) is always appreciative as well.